


Farewell Transmission

by destronomics



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-25
Updated: 2009-11-25
Packaged: 2017-10-03 17:09:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/destronomics/pseuds/destronomics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's another coping mechanism, one of too many now allowed to take root. She's not anything special or particularly cruel: she is coping, she must be. (Best Damn Drabblefest, for the prompt: 35. "Please, God, make me a stone.")</p>
            </blockquote>





	Farewell Transmission

_35\. Please, God, make me a stone._

She thinks he looks sad, and he might be sad, but maybe she's just projecting. He is breaking up with her so he _should_ be sad, someone in this room should be capable of it and if it's not her--

She's projecting.

"I am sorry," He tells her. His voice, she thinks, carefully modulated so that he does not offend, as if it is a kindness. It's not what she wants and she's ashamed of what she wants these days, she wants too much, not the least of which something she can never ask of him and still be who he is. She'd hate him for it if it wasn't what she--

There's a word for what she feels for him, for how she fell for him, she's sure of it. There's a word for it but it's not coming to her now and for the first time in a long time, she finds herself at a loss, inarticulate. It has been awhile. Maybe this is what she deserves.

He's sorry and she might be too. "There is just too much to do," she provides for him, the least that _she_ could do. He thanks her and there is no pretense of control in his voice, then, and Uhura hates that the destruction of his home planet, the genocide of his people and the death of his mother is all that it takes to get her to recognize the pitch.

**

They save one world, lose another, and Uhura tries not to find that funny, the cosmic math of it: untold billions died, and untold billions saved and how two impossible numbers might as well cancel each other out. Two weeks into this new reality, mundane already for having been lived, and Uhura is critically aware that this is exactly what the Starfleet counselors exist for -- provided to alleviate -- this realization: they are still _here_.

There's a dullness to it, and it almost makes it seem easy to manage if she thinks of it head on, if she acknowledges the existence of lack. It gives the pain a boundary she can feel out, isolate, and tuck away.

Rationally, she realizes, she must be suffering too, so maybe this is why she feels, mostly, numb. If she is numb because of some pain, then the lack of guilt for finding her work _interesting_ and valuable, and worthwhile, that can't be so bad, can it?

Despite instigating first contact, despite seeking to teach and spread knowledge, Vulcans had prided themselves on decorum, on secrecy, and for the first time in centuries they finally had no choice but to dispense with pretense. Someone had finally taught them how to share: Specialized dialects, conjugated verb forms, ancient religious texts outlining a history once forbidden from off-world access, from the Federation, from the pads of her fingers that certainly did not shake in anticipation.

Well. It isn't so difficult now (they are so beautiful, she could cry. for all the wrong reasons, she could cry.)

It's another coping mechanism, one of too many now allowed to take root. She's not anything special or particularly cruel: she is coping, she must be.

**

Uhura had told Spock, once, in the months ago that now feel like years, decades and centuries: she'd kill a man, a few men, in hand to hand combat and armed only with the sharpened edge of her PADD, to get her hands on the Kir'Shara. Spock had blinked at her for a few beats, and then:

"You are exaggerating."

"Perhaps." She smiles because she had found that Spock had the tendency to take jokes like these ("these": threats of physical violence, threats to the Starfleet honor code, threats to ruffle his hair, etc.) quite seriously without visual clues of good humor. So she learns to smile wide, to tilt her head and keep her eyes steady so that he doesn't have to ask; so he doesn't have to feel two steps removed from a conversation because he doesn't have the tools to understand.

"Ah, I shall inform planetary defenses to stand down then."

Uhura blinks and stares, and then realizes, and then grins.

"Huh." Her search for another word, an _actual_ word, comes up short.

He does not grin, but Uhura is on to him. There is no upturn of lip or crinkling of skin around his steady eyes, he is the same now as he was before but this time Uhura is _so_ on to him.

**

It feels exactly what it is: a piece of carved stone, dusted with bits of itself sloughing off thanks to time; it's a constant across M-class worlds that even Vulcan stoicism must bend to. The dust coats the tips of her fingers, fine and gold-tinged, and might almost be pretty, if she had anyone around capable of commenting as such. As it is just her and a research contingent of quiet, focused Vulcans, she doesn't entertain the thought for long. She is careful and doesn't let it happen again, running the tricorder a strict six centimeters from the edge, and committing the priceless artifact of now triple-the-incalculable-worth to the Federation databanks.

When she is finished, she lets a Vulcan elder set it gently back into a case, back into stasis, and back out of sight.

Only later, back in the quarters provided for her and with her clothes in a pile on the floor outside of the refresher, does it hit fully. Bottom lip tucked between her teeth, and she's digging out the granules of dirt from under her fingernails under the sonics when Uhura realizes, suddenly, exactly what they are. Her knees clatter against the metal as she scrambles to the floor, trying to grab at the specks of dirty before they're pulled into the bowels of the ship, reduced into basic components and made meaningless as they are interchangeable. It's too late, of course it's too late. This is a state-of-the-art ship and designed for efficiency in mind and _of course_ she's too late.

The last of Vulcan, and she lets it get sucked down the drain. Her knees hurt from where they hit hard, and her hip aches up into her spine, and she is naked under the spray of pressurized air, and she shouldn't be cold, the tech doesn't allow for it but--

She shakes and she needs to cry and she can't and, dully, she thinks there's the word, the one she was looking for, right there on the tip of her tongue all that time, how had she been too stupid to see it: _shock._

**

When she gets the assignment, her first thought is to find Spock. They aren't supposed to be what they used to be to each other, but she goes to his quarters anyway. They are still friends, yes, but even that can't explain the gift he has given her. It shouldn't.

He says, simply, "You were well suited for the task."

Uhura doesn't know what to say.

**


End file.
